Sixthly, There is nothing in the text of force to persuade that the persons here spoken of must needs be truly justified and regenerated believers, much less that Christ died for them ; which comes in only by strained consequences. One expression only seems to give any colour hereunto, — that they were said to be "sanctified by the blood of the covenant." Now, concerning this, if we do but consider, — fi^rst, The manner and custom of the apostles writing to the churches, calling them all " saints" that were called, — ascribing that to every one that belonged only to some ; secondly. That these persons were baptized, (which ordinance among the ancients was sometimes called foiTi6[j.6g, " illumination," sometimes uyiae/xog, " sanctification, ") wherein, by a solemn aspersion of the symbol of the blood of Christ, they were externally sanctified, separated, and set apart, and were by all esteemed as saints and believers; thirdly, The various significations of the word ayidt^u (here used) in the Scripture, whereof one most frequent is, to consecrate and set apart to any holy use, as 2 Chron.
8G8 THE DEATH OF DEATH. [BOOK IV.
xxix. 33, Lev. xvi. 4};^ fourthly, That Paul useth in this epistle many words and phrases in a temple sense, alluding, in the things and ways of the Christian church, unto the old legal observances; fifthly, That supposed and professed sanctity is often called so, and esteemed to be so indeed; — if, I say, we shall consider these things, it will be most apparent that here is indeed no true, real, internal, effectual sanctification, proper to God's elect, at all intimated, but only a common external setting apart (with repute and esteem of real holiness) from the ways of the world and customs of the old synagogue, to an enjoyment of the ordinance of Christ representing the blood of the covenant. So that this commination being made to all so externally and apparently sanctified, to them that were truly so it declared the certain connection between apostasy and condemnation ; thereby warning them to avoid it, as Joseph [was] warned to flee mto Egypt, lest Herod should slay the child ; which yet, in respect of God's purpose, could not be effected. In respect of them that were only apparently so, it held out the odiousness of the sin, with their own certain inevitable destruction if they fell into it; which it was possible they might do.
And thus, by the Lord's assistance, have I given you, as I hope, a clear solution to all the arguments which heretofore the Arminians pretended to draw from the Scripture in the defence of their cause; some other sophisms shall hereafter be removed. But because of late we have had a multiplication of arguments on this subject, some whereof, at least in form, appear to be new, and may cause some trouble to the unskilful, I shall, in the next place, remove all those objections which Thomas More, in his book of the " Universality of Free Grace," hath gathered together against our main thesis, of Christ's dying only for the elect, which himself puts together in one bundle, chap. xxvL, and calleth them i-easons.
CHAPTER VI
An answer to the twentieth chapter of the book entitled, " The Universality of God's Free Grace," etc., being a collection of all the arguments used by the author throughout the whole book to prove the universality of redemption.
The title pretends satisfaction to them who desire to have reason satisfied : which, that it is a gi'eat undertaking, I easily grant ; but for the performance of it, " hie labor, hoc opus." That ever Christian reason, riglitly informed by the word of God, should be satisfied with any doctrine so discrepant from the word, so full of contradiction in itself and to its own principles, as the doctrine of universal redemp-
lu these passages the LXX. has hyiaffiivoi fio<rx,<>i> and x''^*"' hytairfiiyov, — Ed,
OBJECTIONS AND TEXTS OF SCRIPTURE CONSIDERED. 369
tion is, I should much marvel. Therefore, I am persuaded that the author of the arguments following (which, lest you should mistake them for others, he calleth reasons) will fail of his intention with all that have so much reason as to know how to make use of reason, and so much grace as not to love darkness more than light. The only- reason, as far as I can conceive, why he calls this collection of all the arguments and texts of Scripture which he had before cited and pro- duced at large so many reasons, being a supposal that he hath given them a logical, argumentative form in this place, I shall briefly con- sider them ; and, by the way, take notice of his skill in a regular framing of arguments, to which here he evidently pretends. His first reason, then, is as followeth : —
I. " That which the Scripture oft and plainly affirmeth in plain words is certainly true and to be believed, Prov. xxii. 20, 21 ; Isa. viii. 20; 2 Pet. i. 19, 20;
" But that Jesus Christ gave himself a ransom, and by the grace of God tasted death for every man, is oft and plainly affirmed in Scrip- ture, as is before shown, chap. vii. to xiii. :
" Therefore, the same is certainly a truth to be believed, John XX. 31, Acts xxvi. 27.''